For the sake of the adult here I hope this was not her second brood. These small herons are tough. It’s late to have young like this and it would be hard to to deal with that many babies.

The last step in raising young is to stop bringing food. Force the juveniles to fly off the nesting trees and follow adults to fish.

The problem is some of the juveniles just don’t catch on to the idea very quickly. Demanding food they attack the adults when they land near by.

The young can fly now though not always very graceful. When hungry enough nature takes over and all the birds go fishing.

These photographs were all shot at about 400mm during a dull day.